In recent years, there has been a trend to build display devices, such as display monitors for personal computers that have a thin-profile (i.e., shallow depth). Currently the most popular types of thin-profile or shallow-depth display monitors are liquid crystal display (LCD) or plasma display systems. Unfortunately, the prices for these types of monitors tend to rise dramatically as the screen size increases.
Rear-projection systems, which are typically less expensive than LCD or plasma systems, may be an alternative to those more expensive LCD and plasma systems. However, rear-projection systems have certain drawbacks. For example, although conventional rear-projection systems tend to have a thinner profile than cathode ray tube (CRT) systems, they tend to be substantially thicker than LCD or plasma display systems.